Margaret River Pro granted world tour status

The Margaret River Pro has been granted World Championship Tour status for the next five years.

From 2013, the top 18 ranked women surfers will compete in the event and from 2014 the top 32 ranked men.

The WA Tourism Minister, Kim Hames, hopes the coverage the event will generate will provide a boost to the local tourism sector.

"It is the international television and media coverage that makes the difference that showcases Western Australia to the world," he said.

"It lets them see what's here, gets people excited about what is in Western Australia and hopefully leads to them to having some tourist event in Western Australia."

The Augusta-Margaret River Shire CEO, Gary Evershed, says the decision will do wonders for the region.

He says there is a lot of work to do before then.

"Planning will have to commence very shortly, and we'll have to go through all the detail, and the impacts in terms of traffic management people management and all the things that are associated with running a big event," he said.

"What it'll mean is a greater economic development for our region, it'll bring more tourists here, it'll put us on the world map."

Mr Evershed says the region is well-equipped to cope with an inevitable boost in visitor numbers.

"The Capes region's got about 50 per cent occupancy at the moment in terms of tourism so I'm sure we'll have the capacity to take up that slack," he said.

"And, we're doing a major upgrade of Surfers Point which is a $5.9 million investment and we'll have the best onshore infrastructure of all the world tour events."